Mark - I take a different view from you on who has the right to catalyse
standards - though that's a different subject from how standards
originators promote themselves
The world is changing incredibly fast socially (and terribly slowly at the
level of our biggest organisations) and we need some new maps charting
possibilities of how to do things. 2 areas concerning me are global
corporate responsibility and transparency of corporate governance. Ways to
resolve this are not going to come from the usual suspects alone.
Accountants have no qualifications for setting transparency system
standards- they have done the most to destroy them! Government standards
institutes haven't exactly understood all the issues that are
interconnected - if they had we wouldn't have the systems mess that has
been the cover story of Fortune, Business Week and presumably every
serious business paper.
The people who will help solve this will be passionate about the issue;
they will have career long experience of global companies; they will have
a highly integrated understanding of systems and maps. They will know
something that is deeply uneconomic or unsocial and be able to pinpoint a
root cause that needs a different spin. It is my own opinion that on top
of this a standard should be open sourced so that anyone can use/learn but
training certification could well be implied for professional use. The
net's greatest uses are (or could be) open source, benchmarking around
maps etc
Let would be users decide whether a framework has legs to change-systems
in a coherently valuable way and is open enough, and if so let standards
evolve and fly if they are worth it.
For sure, I have a few vested interests because I belong to a virtual
network of people who are passionate about systems and mapping. And we are
conceptualising 'standards' as diametric opposites to organsiational
dynamics which we believe are depressing at best and putting our world in
peril at worst. So at the same time I sympathise with selected activist
causes which seem urgent and will only make real progress if we change the
system. We need for example to change the standard way global companies
promote themselves. Come and join The Million People Web if you might
agree http://www.valuetrue.com/home/glossary.cfm
sincerely, chris macrae wcbn007@easynet.co.uk
----- Original Message -----
>From: "Mark W. McElroy" <mmcelroy@vermontel.net>
>
> Dear Allan:
>
> Is your organization a for-profit entity or a non-profit entity? If a
> for-profit entity, in what sense are we to take the meaning of "Standards"
> in your organization's name? If you are non-profit, same question: what
> is the meaning of "Standards" in your title? Standards for whom and under
> what authority? Or is this just a marketing spin?
>
> If we are to take this as an Australian KM standards organization (which
> the name clearly implies), then what is its charter, under what authority,
> and who are its Directors or independent overseers?
>
> Alan Cotterell wrote:
>
> >Members of this group might be interested in the new KM web site operated
> >by Standards Australia International at:
> >http://www.knowledge.standards.com.au/
--"Chris Macrae" <wcbn007@easynet.co.uk>
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